Best Horror Games of 2024: The Year's Standouts
2024 brought the SILENT HILL 2 remake, the short and much-praised Mouthwashing and a strong run of retro survival horror. These are the year's horror games that players and critics rated well, from big releases to free games you can finish tonight.
The games
23 of the 30 games in this guide are outside your choice (GOG) and are left out. Show them all.
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PsychologicalSILENT HILL 2The ground-up remake of the 2001 classic: James searches fog-bound Silent Hill for his late wife among monsters that mirror his guilt.
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SurvivalCrow CountryPS1-style survival horror in an abandoned theme park in 1990, with puzzles, monsters and an Exploration Mode for newcomers.
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SurvivalSorry We're ClosedFixed-camera 90s-style survival horror with a neon look: a woman cursed by a lovesick archdemon, and a third eye.
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SurvivalCONSCRIPTTop-down survival horror at Verdun in 1916, scavenging and fighting through trenches in the classic Resident Evil style.
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SurvivalThe Bridge Curse 2: The ExtricationTaiwanese survival horror in a haunted university building, hiding from ghosts as four characters.
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SurvivalWithering RoomsSurvival horror in a Victorian mansion that rearranges itself every night, Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam.
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SurvivalHollowbodySurvival horror in a walled-off, ruined British city, searching for the partner who went in first.
2024 was the year a remake and a tiny indie game led horror. SILENT HILL 2, rebuilt from the ground up by Bloober Team, brought James Sunderland's search for his late wife through fog-bound Silent Hill to a new generation, with its monsters still mirroring his guilt. Mouthwashing, a short first-person story about the stranded crew of a space freighter running out of food and hope, drew Overwhelmingly Positive reviews from nearly 39,000 players on Steam.
Survival horror had a strong year. Crow Country rebuilt the PS1 style in an abandoned 1990 theme park and added an Exploration Mode for newcomers, Sorry We're Closed paired fixed camera angles with a neon look and an archdemon looking for love, and CONSCRIPT took the classic Resident Evil formula into the trenches of Verdun. Withering Rooms set its survival horror in a Victorian mansion that changes every night, Hollowbody sent you into a walled-off, ruined British city after a missing partner, and Fear the Spotlight, a short PS1-style story about a school séance gone wrong, was one of the year's best-rated small releases, as was Late Homework, a jam game grown into a full release in which a schoolgirl fetches her forgotten homework from a school at night, under fixed cameras with tank controls. Still Wakes the Deep, from The Chinese Room, put you on a 1975 oil rig breaking apart while its crew turned into something else, with no weapon at all.
Some of 2024's best ideas were small. Buckshot Roulette is Russian roulette with a shotgun against a grinning dealer, Homicipher asks you to learn a monster's language by its faces and gestures, Home Safety Hotline turns a 1996 pest helpline into analog horror, and Platform 8 carried The Exit 8's anomaly spotting onto a train that never stops, while The Cabin Factory, released in December, made it a factory job: inspect each cabin on the line and walk out the moment something is wrong. Shipwrecked 64 pretends to be a lost 1990s platformer that rots as you play. Psychopomp, Krypta FM and Indigo Park: Chapter 1 are all free and all worth an evening.
With friends, Content Warning had groups filming monsters for views, and The Outlast Trials, fully released in 2024, put up to four test subjects through a Cold War brainwashing program. Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit turned a FNAF story into a 2D adventure about a ball pit that leads into the past, and Until Dawn came back rebuilt for PC and PlayStation 5. Slitterhead, from Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama's new studio, had a bodiless spirit jump between the people of a neon city to hunt brain-eating monsters hiding among them. Konami also gave away SILENT HILL: The Short Message on PlayStation 5, a free first-person story about a girl following a friend's message into an abandoned building.
Start with SILENT HILL 2 or Crow Country for survival horror, Mouthwashing for a story you can finish in an evening, and Buckshot Roulette or Content Warning with friends. For this year's games, see the guides to the best horror games of 2025 and new horror games of 2026.
Questions
What was the best horror game of 2024?
The SILENT HILL 2 remake was the year's biggest horror release, and Mouthwashing, Crow Country and Buckshot Roulette were among the best-reviewed indie games.
Were there good free horror games in 2024?
Yes: Psychopomp, Krypta FM and Indigo Park: Chapter 1 are free on Steam and rated Overwhelmingly Positive by players.
Which 2024 horror games can I play with friends?
Content Warning for up to four players, The Outlast Trials for up to four, and Buckshot Roulette's online mode.
Which 2024 horror games are on Switch?
Crow Country, Sorry We're Closed, Home Safety Hotline, Platform 8, CONSCRIPT, Homicipher and Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit are all on Nintendo Switch.
More horror games by kind
- Survival horror games
- Horror games with multiple endings
- Horror puzzle games
- Fixed camera horror games
- PS1 horror games
- Haunted house games
Other guides
- 90s Horror Games: The Classics You Can Still Play
- Asian Horror Games: Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese and More
- Backrooms Games: Lost in the Endless Yellow Rooms
- Best Horror Games of 2022: SIGNALIS, Iron Lung and More
- Best Horror Games of 2023: Remakes, Indies and Co-op
- Best Horror Games of 2025: The Year's Standouts
- Best Horror Games of All Time: The Classics to Play
- Old Flash Horror Games You Can Still Play
- FMV Horror Games: Live-Action Horror to Play
- FNAF Fan Games: The Best Free Five Nights Fan Games
- Free Horror Games on PC: The Best Free Downloads on Steam
- Games Like Alan Wake: Dark Towns, Detectives and Nightmares